By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

Book Information

The Irish Travellers are one of Ireland's oldest minorities, a minority whohave frequently lived on the margins of the "majority" or settledcommunity. This volume explores linguistic change amongst this culturalgroup with a particular focus on the influence of the educational system.This book analyses whether increased attendance by young Traveller women insecondary education is influencing long-term change in linguistic usage andspeech patterns. The tendency for convergence/non-convergence to thesettled community's speech patterns is analysed as is the question ofwhether such speech variations are a strategy for "survival" in the schoolenvironment. This study is based on an analysis of both naturally-occurringconversation and speech as explored within an informal interview setting.